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Comment by bluenose69 | Hacker News Reader

Having been quite interested in GNU/Hurd a long time ago (the years have become decades, I fear) and having lost track of the project, I wonder whether somebody can comment on where GNU/Hurd is being used nowadays.

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> I wonder whether somebody can comment on where GNU/Hurd is being used nowadays.

Simply put: nowhere. It's an experimental kernel with limited hardware support (x86 only, very few device drivers) and a bunch of critical features missing (e.g. no multiprocessor support, no power management).

> x86 only

And limited x86_64 :)

I'm not sure how far that support even goes. There's one page on the wiki which claims that "A 64-bit GNU/Hurd is also coming soon", but all of the downloadable images are 32-bit only, and Git history suggests that it's still a work in progress.

I don't think this release technically includes the 64 bit support, but there is an image here: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2023-05/msg00484... that can supposedly get you a minimal Debian 64 bit system running on Hurd after some configuration.

Also I just found that they have a directory for packages here: http://ftp.ports.debian.org/debian-ports/pool-hurd-amd64/ but none have been added yet.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1508/

The pre-iOS Android was a blackberry clone

Did you just reply with random OS names? Android isn't iOS, the first release version looked and was nothing like Blackberry devices.

(If you're making sense, clarity might help for me/others?)

Google initially was working on Android as more of a Blackberry clone, and then when Apple announced iOS they realized that a full screen touch system was the future. So they scrapped the Blackberry clone OS and scrambled to get something more like iOS, which is what you’re now familiar with as the Android OS.

This story has been floating around in various tech areas. Here’s a podcast about it: https://corecursive.com/android-with-chet-haase/

Exactly. I remember the alpha screenshots. Although not many seem to somehow

OP is just saying that before iPhone/iOS was announced in 2007, there was an effort to build Android, but it was something that resembled Blackberries. After the iPhone was announced, there was a big project reset, which shifted Android to what eventually got launched in 2008.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/the-d...

And in the xkcd household Android was used starting in 2009, and some years later iOS. Seems consistent with history.

I just read on info guix that they have a setting to use GNU/Hurd as kernel, maybe that could be fun virtualized.

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